In The End We'll Both Rot Together
by Korosuhito
Summary: A prophecy is written and with it comes a fate that cannot be escaped. For the past 10 years of Tsuki Tae's life, she has ceased to exist as a human being; instead, she is a memory of a time her clan would prefer forgotten, a relic of the past. ItachixOC.
1. Phantasmagoria

This story is dedicated to the two most important women in my life:

My mother and my grandmother.

I love you.

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**Phantasmagoria**

Midnight, and autumn's full moon was high in the sky, her silvery light dancing across the hip-gabled rooftops of dark houses, casting long shadows across the empty streets.

Midnight, and Kitsuneyama was still and silent. The surrounding mountains were impassive; their peaks a thorny crown protecting the tiny village in the valley from the dangers of the outside world, and they from the horrors that dwelt, hidden, within the ageless hills.

Ancient history steeped in prejudice kept Kitsuneyama's superstitious villagers bound to her – the same code that had once known them as the greatest warriors in the north now tied them to the same strip of land their forefathers had fought decade wars to defend.

The wind picked up, blowing the first of the cherry blossoms from the trees, the clouds across the moon.

-

Two guards shifted at their station at the village gate, ill at ease. A low mist had crept in from the east to shroud the mountains in shimmering grey.

One man turned to the other, his dark Tsuki eyes glimmering in the low light.

"Bakemono no soku."

Both he and his companion laughed, albeit uneasily, and corded muscles moved to grip Tsuki blades, their laughter escaping through the fog rising from their nostrils, drifting up towards the heavens and dissipating like the smoke that would soon fill the early morning sky and send the carrion birds screaming and wheeling.

The moon slipped behind another cloud, and the first man began to pace restlessly. Having always relied upon the brilliance of the moon to light their autumn watch, they had never required the illumination and warmth a fire rendered.

His eyes darted to the silent forest before them, bordering the only path that led both to and from the village – a treacherous road through the mountains, then to the mountain tops themselves, invisible now behind their cloak of silver mist.

The mists – by large – heralded the arrival of winter and, as the mountain peaks were without their first covering of snow – and would not be so until the beginning of the next full moon – mist this early in the year was unseasonal – unsettling.

A sudden deafening blast wrought the night air, and both guards leapt to their feet as a ball of earth and fire exploded from the summit of one of the taller mountains, the flame tearing the mists aside like a curtain. The earth groaned, and both men watched in horror as a wall of rock and debris slid from the mountain's eastern-most peak, thundering down its side towards them, rubble bouncing from the loose sheet of earth, flattening all in its path, sending the forest birds flying before it. It came to a roaring halt in the depths of the forest, a huge cloud of dust rising from the midst of the trees, and as quickly as it had begun, the landside had stopped, leaving a long jagged expanse of exposed rock and soil in its path, an ugly scar on the mountain's face.

The two men exhaled heavily, one gripping his knees as the trembling earth fell still, the trees stopped groaning.

"Thank the merciful heavens—"

His prayer was cut short as a sudden, inhuman cry pulled itself his mouth, and from that of his partner's. Blood bubbled and hissed, pouring from the newly carved lips on their throats, carotid and jugular spraying messily as both men toppled forward under the weight of their own forsaken bodies, their assailants silent behind them, limbs stricken with a temporary rigor mortis brought on by the sudden savagery of their actions.

Then, they relaxed.

Four others pulled themselves from the forest, branches tugging hesitantly at their clothes like the hands of small children.

Wiping carmine blades clean, the two assassins lifted their eyes to meet those of their associates, a single male figure standing slightly ahead of the others.

He nodded slightly, and the two waited until the village gate opened from within before following their comrades in silence.

Identical black cloaks streaming out behind them as they passed in to Kitsuneyama.

The gift of invisibility had been granted to a select few.

-

Eyes opened, and Tsuki Yuugao was jerked from her dream of chasing something just beyond her grasp.

Her husband sat upright beside her on the futon they shared, shirtless, the luminosity of the full moon reflected in his dark eyes. A cool breeze blew in from the open window, ruffling his coal-black hair like grass on winter fields.

Yuugao lifted herself awkwardly in to a sitting position, her body sluggish with the added bulk of child. Placing a hand on his shoulder, she breathed his name.

"Kagetsu?"

He turned slowly to look at his wife, her eyes heavily lidded and dark from lack of sleep, body fatigued from the labour of a hard life about to be cut short. His gaze returned to the starless sky.

"Something is wrong." A thin wisp of cloud closed over the full moon. "The air has changed."

There had been no clouds when he had lain down to sleep.

Her rough hand tensed on his shoulder as the room grew dark.

"What is it?"

He looked at her again. Her white lips were pressed in to a thin line, but there was no fear in her eyes.

Smiling at his wife, he stood slowly.

"Go back to sleep, Yuugao."

She watched in silence as he dressed and took up his sword, leaving without a word, unaware that this would be the last time she would see her husband alive.

Hindsight making a mockery of him as his unborn child gave its first feeble kick in its mother's womb.

-

He could only draw comfort from the way in which his katana bumped rhythmically against his leg as he walked hurriedly down the streets of Kitsuneyama, the same boyhood knowledge that had led him to his favourite hiding places from his teachers now carrying his being towards the town square. He recalled these memories with a small smile; his reluctance to study the art of the sword or spear or bow that were now as much a part of him as his own beating heart.

As he rounded the corner, he saw that he had not been alone in his premonition. The bulk of the small Kitsuneyama army stood straight-backed and proud around the raised stone platform, weapons at their side or in hand, men that knelt as he passed and called him their captain, men that would fight by his side and follow him to death to protect their beloved village.

They cheered as he approached, and he didn't make to quiet them, didn't have the heart to challenge their faith in him.

He gave the order for a runner to be sent to investigate, and ascended the stairs to stand alone atop the stone platform. There, he had a somewhat better view of the village before him. To the south-west, the break in the mountains indicated the only easily accessible point of entry in to Kitsuneyama. The broad side of one of the greater mountains bore an ugly chasm along its southern flank that, he speculated, had been the source of the noise that had awoken him earlier. The shifting tectonics beneath the earth the village was built upon meant that landsides and tremors were common occurrences, but this did little to ease his restlessness.

Turning to the south, his eyes came to a rest on what, from his position above ground level – or to those who didn't know better – appeared to be a large expanse of undeveloped land. While it was true the land above was not being used, the space below certainly was.

His thoughts flickered with a discomforting frequency to _her_ – the bastard child, carrier of the royal Tsuki bloodline – and the site of her resting spot filled him with chill dread. He couldn't begin, didn't want to _imagine_ the terror that would ensue if she had been the root of all these discomforting omens…

A loud cry signalled that his runner had returned, but the cheers turned quickly to gasps of horror, and the soldiers before him dropped to their knees, foreheads pressed against the earth.

Before them stood a dead man, his left arm below the elbow naught but a grotesque mess of mangled flesh and artery as if it had been torn from its very socket. His bloody right hand clutched the abdomen, holding his own entrails as they fought against the force that held them here. Blood had trickled down from his temples to fill his wide eyes, and he stumbled as he made his way through the prostrate crowd towards his captain.

"H-help me…"

He coughed once, then crumpled to the ground. Kagetsu rushed forward to kneel at his soldier's side. His hand had fallen away from his torso and now Kagetsu could see with glistening, scent-pervading clarity the pulsating of this man's small intestine.

Swallowing the bile that rose in his throat, he took the man's hand.

"What did you see?"

The man's eyes opened, his jaw quivering, bands of saliva and blood stretching between his parted lips.

"_Ba_… _Bakemono_…"

He coughed again, the blood bubbled from his mouth, then his body became still, his hand limp, and Kagetsu drew back in horror.

_Bakemono…_

Kagetsu stared down at his kinsman's body, felt the blood pound in his ears. Around him, his remaining soldiers had straightened up, their fearful murmurs and whispered prayers rising up around him.

Slowly – mechanically – he stood, dimly aware of the blood that coated his right hand as he made his way back to the platform, his feet leaden and dragging as he climbed the stone steps. His thoughts flickered to his wife, his unborn child, his two sons, and the frantic, primitive wish that he could have had the chance to say goodbye.

_Too late for that now._

He thought of the little girl he had seen walking with her mother, her eyes wide with childish curiosity and laughter.

From within the darkest recesses of his mind, the same girl – older now, her features more pronounced – shrieked with maniacal laughter, her arms outstretched to him as she called his name, and whispered…

_B__akemono, bakemono, bakemono…_

His eyes snapped open. His men were staring up at him, and he saw in their eyes his own inadequacy reflected back at him, felt the pressure in their collected gaze, begging him for salvation that he could not bring, for the false hope he would instil in them.

He licked his dry lips to moisten them, and spoke, his quiet voice carrying across the crowd.

"We will go and meet them."

His heart ached with fear. This was the choice the elders and prophets of yesteryear had spoken of. He would make that choice, the choice that none other could make.

The right choice.

He spoke again.

"We will go out and meet these monsters, and drive them from our village."

The muttering broke out again, like the angry buzzing of a hive of bees.

"But – Captain—!"

"What will you have me do?" His voice broke and a cold sweat prickled on his forehead. "I will not hand over Kitsuneyama to these monsters without a fight!"

The girl inside his head was laughing mirthlessly, her pale skin stretched tight across the emaciated bones of her face, giving her a skeletal, ethereal appearance as she doubled over with malicious laughter.

_Where is your God now?_

"But we cannot win! How can we defeat a foe whose abilities and power we do not even know –"

Forcing a confidence in to his voice, he lifted his head, meeting, unflinching, the eyes of his soldiers.

_Hope is not lost._

"We will not be going alone."

Raising his left hand to his lip, he extended his thumb, placing it in between his teeth and biting down hard to draw blood, allowing it to well up before running the digit across the already flecked palm of his right hand. The dark liquid coursed through deep creases forty years old, creases that knew a sword intimately, and he clenched his fist. He didn't want to see his own blood flowing through his lifeline. Crouching, he performed the hand seals taught to every Tsuki child, then placed his spattered palm against the cool stone.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu."

Smoke bloomed around him, and a large fox appeared amongst the miasma, shaking its head, his fur the colour of brick baked red by the sun, streaked with grey. Eyes that had once been piercingly black were milky white.

He was blind.

His mighty head swung around, lip curling back to show powerful teeth, nose twitching as he sniffed the wind.

There was a long moment of silence, then a chorus of "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" rang out, and the sound of foxes screaming and snarling filled the night air, their songs harmonizing with one another and lifting the lilting tune up to the autumn sky.

Tsuki Kagetsu's gaze swept over his men, fierce determination etched on their weathered faces. Hand falling to his hip, he gripped the hilt of his katana, drawing the long sword and holding it aloft.

"For Kitsuneyama," he said quietly, the moonlight illuminating the four characters etched in to the blade's face.

"For Kitsuneyama!" the men echoed.

-

In her cell in the village's prison, Tsuki Tae opened her indigo eyes.

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**_This is just self-induced terror  
There's more to come, this is just a glimpse  
I tell myself it's all in my head  
But I'm pretty hard to convince  
_****- To A Friend, Alexisonfire**

**Comments & reviews would be greatly appreciated.**

**Thankyoux**


	2. Anaesthesia

**Anaesthesia**

Looking at the full moon, Uchiha Itachi was struck, as often he had been as a child, with the – what to any other would be disheartening – knowledge and pathetic notion of the sheer insignificance and pointlessness of human life; that, in the face of so much unchanged and untamed beauty, life was little more than a passing moment to the ageless eyes of the moon and the stars and the sun. Man had always desired to believe that his and his children's lives meant more than a brief period of troubled and painful toil curtailed by death. Uchiha Itachi was neither arrogant nor hopeful enough to insist that man's individual fates could not be accidental, that there was some higher power or master plan behind the complete senselessness of it all; that all his striving would be utterly futile if there was no reason for living – and there was none. Humanity's faith in their Gods was not justified. Blind, prosaic, _senseless_.

A dark shadow passed over the moon in the form of an enormous bird, and Itachi heard his partner, Kisame, call to the others as the feathered animal circled gradually lower, eventually alighting on the dusty earth. A blond man slipped from its back, brushing his long hair out of his eyes before striding towards the group of men assembled under the village gate, the moonlight now showing the bird to not be a bird at all – rather, clay fashioned in to the form of one – before it disappeared in a cloud of white, scentless smoke.

"I did it, un," he said, addressing the auburn-haired man who stood slightly ahead of the throng and stepping in to line beside his partner, a squat, hunched-over man named Sasori, who looked disbelievingly at his colleague before making a noise of contempt and turning away.

"Good, Deidara. And –"

"Already in place." The blond grinned, evidently pleased with himself. "Zetsu took care of it."

The other man nodded and turned, watching without curiosity as a rounded, spherical object began to rise up from the ground before him, loose earth and gravel tumbling aside as it broke the surface. As the soil fell away, a large green dome became visible, struggling slowly upwards. This was immediately followed by a black cloak, the green dome emerging directly from the cloak's open collar to join a male's broad torso. Gradually, the body rose upwards, revealing a humanoid figure that stood before them, shaking the dust from its sandals. The green dome split apart jaggedly, zigzagging down its the middle and falling open sideways to reveal a man's strong-featured face, the green dome now forming two large leaves that enclosed his head, so that he resembled a hybrid between a human being and a Venus flytrap. The colour of his skin was also split down the middle – his right side black; the left, white – adding further to the surrealism of Zetsu's already bizarre appearance. He raised his luminous amber eyes to the sky, to the moon hovering over the group of eight men.

"Good night for a full moon," he commented, then stared at the auburn-haired man, and said in a much deeper voice: **"Pein. I found her."**

Pein's head whipped around to look at the other man, his eyes – eyes that appeared to have caught the transcendence of a pebble dropping in to a pool of water; of ripples, small at first, but getting gradually larger as they spread outwards – glimmering.

"Where is she?"

"**A couple of hundred metres south-east from here.****"**

The pierced man's jaw twitched, but he said nothing to Zetsu, instead look at Itachi, who turned to the east – a response to the question that did not need to be asked of the ebony haired man to know what the Leader had intended.

"They're coming," he said. "Forty of them – all with summons."

Pein nodded, turning to gaze in the same direction as the sound of approaching feet suddenly became audible. Spinning on his heel, he faced the group of six men before him, scrutinizing them carefully.

"Deidara, Itachi, Kisame, Sasori," he said eventually, look at each man in turn. "You will follow Zetsu and do as he orders. He has an important job to complete. Do you understand?"

Beside him, Itachi felt his partner stiffen, heard Deidara click his tongue in annoyance.

"That is all."

As the five men began to walk away, Pein suddenly called out to the monochromatic man.

"Zetsu – you know what I need. Do not fail me."

The tall man looked over his shoulder at his Leader, grinning lopsidedly.

"I'm afraid it may be out of my hands, _Sir_."

He turned and ambled away.

-

Not often had any of the five men been forced to walk away from an impending battle, and, to Itachi, it reminded him of his childhood – something he would have rather forgotten entirely. The sounds of combat between the army of Kitsuneyama and the three associates they left behind faded in to silence as they made their way slowly south-east. Kitsuneyama Village, in itself, wasn't large – rather, the close confines in which the buildings had been built made it difficult to navigate, and Zetsu, who lead the group, walked unhurriedly, seemingly deep in thought.

Itachi and Kisame followed, the Uchiha wordlessly assessing the village, noting the houses in which cowardly men sheltered, too fearful to show their faces; in which children cried out in the night, running from the monsters in their dreams; and in which women lay awake, restlessly awaiting the return of their husbands and sons. He didn't feel any sort of guilt or remorse that these quiet, harmless villagers would never again see the men they loved, that, if he had learnt anything about Pein – _and he knew more than the mysterious man would allow,_ or so he thought –, within the hour these women and their children would, too, be obliterated by the Akatsuki.

Next to him, Kisame's frustration and bloodlust were poorly veiled – his disappointment at not being able to take part in the slaughter evident in the way he ran his hand testily through his steely blue hair, pointed teeth clamped tightly on his lower lip, beady eyes narrowed.

Bringing up the rear was Deidara, rolling a ball of clay between his hands and scowling heavily, and his skulking partner, Sasori, the puppet master's wooden face betraying no emotion.

They walked steadily south-east for ten minutes, silent except for the chirping of crickets, the creaking of wooden houses, the gentle bubbling of water somewhere in the distance, and Deidara, Sasori and Zetsu's shuffling feet, then, when they could see the foot of the mountains through the houses, Zetsu stopped, staring up at the peaks.

He looked skyward for a moment, then began walking again, leading the others to the very foot of the mountains and to the source of the bubbling water.

Deidara watched dumbly as Zetsu approached the small fountain, crouching down before it and running his hands along the smooth white stone it was fashioned from, lips moving silently. Then, he stood, stepping backwards before circling it, observing the fountain from all sides, occasionally looking back at the mountain tops. The water tinkled away.

"What is it, un?" Deidara snapped after a length of time in which Itachi, Kisame and Sasori had watched Zetsu silently.

Zetsu stared at the blond, looked back at the fountain, then he turned on his heel and strode back in the direction in which they had come.

"My, my," Kisame sighed, smirking and shaking his head at his partner before following Zetsu.

Ignoring this, Itachi walked after Kisame, and, despite the question burning in his mind, did not make to ask the monochromatic man. Nor did he offer information about the single character etched in to the bowl's underside.

They walked north for a further fifteen minutes, until the houses grew fewer in number and further apart, then, after a narrow strip of unoccupied land, gave way entirely to dozens of small, square stone buildings that emerged from the below the earth's surface and rose scarcely a meter above ground; buildings Itachi recognized as underground storehouses for crops. Fifty meters ahead, he could see a depression in the terrain surrounded by a low bamboo fence that he thought to be stairs that perhaps led to the storehouses, and, beyond that, after another brief stretch of unoccupied land, the houses recommenced, closer together than ever.

Here, Zetsu slowed, then, with a sense of purpose, began navigating his way through the low buildings to stand in the very centre. He turned to his four companions.

"What are these things, un?" Deidara asked, looking from side to side.

"Storehouses," Sasori replied, his eyes travelling to the base of the wall, where it almost touched the stone path, and to the three, small barred windows set in to it, brow furrowed, before turning to Itachi.

The raven haired man nodded slightly.

Overhead, the moon slipped behind a cloud, plunging their surroundings in to darkness.

Itachi turned to look at the same building Sasori was staring so intently at, his crimson Sharingan eyes piercing the brick. Inside, something – someone – stirred, and a chakra neither beast nor human – but both – surged around him. His eyes narrowed, and he chanced a glance at Zetsu. The other man was frowning, eyes narrowed, lips again moving silently.

The moon appeared again, the light growing across the ground as the cloud was cast aside. Itachi turned away from the buildings, assuming an air of indifference.

"Itachi-san?"

Kisame wore a suspicious expression; one Itachi had come to know meant unease – not for Itachi himself but unease for an unfamiliar situation that may arise.

_Everyone dies, the only variable is when and where._

The fact that he was able to recall the phrase from the depths of his consciousness both disturbed and startled him – surely he had pushed them aside…?

"Itachi-san?"

Kisame was calling his name again.

"What is it, Itachi-san?"

"There is an unusual aura in the air," Itachi said finally – reluctantly –, then added, "A chakra I cannot pick."

Uncertainty, and he hated it.

Sasori's eyes flashed on to Itachi's own, his wooden lips pursed in disbelief. Kisame's own beady eyes were narrowed.

"This is where we split up," Zetsu said suddenly, startling Deidara who was looking between the four other men, not appearing the slightest bit perturbed by Itachi's unusual lack of surety. "Deidara, Sasori – you will head north from here. Itachi, Kisame – east. Find all the women and children, and bring them to the village square."

Sasori looked between Itachi and Zetsu, met the Uchiha's eyes, then turned to his younger partner.

"Come, Deidara."

The blond gazed once more at the Uchiha, then grunted and stalked after his partner, long hair swinging behind him.

Kisame waited until they had reached the edge of the houses and were out of earshot before turning to his own partner.

"Well?" he demanded.

Ignoring Kisame, Itachi gazed levelly at Zetsu for a moment, then brushed his jet-black fringe out of his eyes.

"Let's go, Kisame."

Even after he moved away, the aura lingered like perfume, Zetsu's eyes boring in to his back.

-

_Awake._

Indigo eyes snapped open, pulling seventeen-year-old Tsuki Tae out of the hellish nightmare that ensnared her each and every time she lost herself to sleep. Lifting herself up – struggling to support her weight on her thin arms –, she reached out in the darkness, her right hand finding at once the iron post of her bed and wrapping tightly around it. Panting heavily, she hung her head, and took a slow, deep breath in to calm herself.

She began to cough immediately, her lungs filling with fine particles of dust, the spasms that shook her body making her double over in pain as she hacked and spluttered, quivering as she felt the blood from deep within her raw throat spatter against her palm.

By the time her coughs died away, she was crying, her face pressed against her knees and shoulders heaving, one hand enclosed about her throat, the other still gripping the bedpost.

The pain didn't subside, even as she attempted to massage the tender skin.

Pulling herself upright, stationary until she was sure her legs could support her, she shuffled across the room, moving with a sense of urgency to the window, staring at the prison guard asleep in his chair as she went, the key to her cell dangling from his waist.

She was the only prisoner in the Kitsuneyama jail.

In fact, it had been built for her use specifically.

Reaching the right wall, she leant against it the cool concrete and rocked up on to her tiptoes to peer out the tiny barred window, twisting her head in a way that would allow her to glimpse the night sky.

Her eyes widened, moonlight reflected in indigo orbs.

_Mochiduki._

Full moon.

Her body began to shake, pupils contracting, and she pulled her eyes away from the silvery moon with a soft sob, sliding down the wall and crawling, animal-like, back across the room to clamber up on to her bed.

After taking a moment to calm herself, she picked up her _Koko_ toy – a stuffed fox her mother's sister had made for her as a baby – and turned him over, poking her swollen fingers in to a hole in the stitching of his worn silken leg, and extracted a small metal rod from within. Then, she began meticulously scratching a near-perfect circle in to the crumbling concrete wall. She took great pride in this, her calendar. When she had finished, she blew on the wall to clear away the dust – pausing to cough again – then silently counted the circles in her calendar.

A sudden noise made her spin around: the sound of the heavy wooden door being dragged open across the stone floor, followed immediately by the sound of footsteps. Her heart hammered in her chest, and, forcing her mind to clear, she began counting the intervals between the paces, trying to familiarize the tread to one of the guards.

_Male... about __sixty kilograms... one hundred and eighty centimetres..._

It resembled no one she knew. No one in Kitsuneyama was that tall.

The eight-year-old girl within her whimpered, and Tae slipped silently off her bed, dropping to the ground and crawling behind the bed head, peeking out from between its iron bars.

Moonlight spilled in from the open door, illuminating a patch of the stone at the foot of the stairs, the male's shadow juxtaposed against it a stark contrast to its pale luminosity.

But it resembled no male she had ever seen in her life – extending from his broad shoulders were two, enormous, spiky objects that encased his head, moving with him as he descended the steps towards her.

"**Can you smell that?"** a deep voice growled.

She jumped when a second, different voice responded to the first, and, by instinct, slid back as far as she could in to the corner. She hadn't sensed a second man, hadn't felt his presence, not at all...

"Yes. I smell it."

The first man cursed quietly, feet pausing, then they carried him down the final stair, and he stood in the moonlight, gazing at his surroundings.

The breath caught in her throat.

The single man standing on the other side of the bars looked like something out a nightmare – he was much, much taller than she had first guessed –, the spiky objects on either side of his head she thought now to be leaves obfuscating most of his face. The little of him she could see, however, was none the less terrifying. His face was split down the middle in to two halves – one side light, the other, dark.

He looked around, his amber eyes passing over the cage, Tae dropping down behind the bed as the luminous orbs rested briefly on her trembling form in the far corner before moving to the prison guard, asleep in his chair. The plant man made an amused sound, then, gazing at Tae again, moved to stand in front of the guard – and bent over him.

She couldn't look away.

A sickening, wet, tearing noise echoed throughout the empty room, followed immediately by the hiss and bubble of blood released, and Tae's heart stopped. The guard toppled out of the chair, dead before he woke, the raw, ragged stump of his neck spouting beautifully across the cold floor, forming a shimmering puddle – candy apple red, colour surreal.

She watched, transfixed, as the puddle grew, the blood pumping steadily out of the major arteries of his neck, travelling down the slight slant of the stone towards the bars of her cage in glittering scarlet rivulets. She was suddenly aware that her entire body was shaking; that her hands clenched so tightly around the iron bars of the bed head that her nails had cut half-moons in to her palms, and exhaled slowly, shakily.

The plant man's head swung around, staring in to the all-pervasive darkness, then he closed his eyes, smirking, before bending over and snatching the shining vermillion key from the dead man's belt. Stepping over the body, he unlocked the cell door, letting it swing open.

She ducked down again, eyes shut tightly, paralysed with fear.

His face was covered with blood.

"**You might as well come out. I know you're in there,"** the low voice said, and she knew that he was looking at her, that he could see her behind the bed, and a choked sob escaped her throat because she knew this man was going to harm her, and because she was _scared_, and she suddenly wanted her mother.

She heard him sigh, heard him shuffle his feet as he shifted his weight from one leg to the other, then the softer voice called out to her.

"I'm not going to hurt you."

Confused, she peeked out at the man from around the bed's clawed foot, wiping her nose on her sleeve, and saw that the gentle voice was his also. He smiled at her, nodding encouragingly, and said, "It's all right. I'm not going to hurt you. Come on."

Sniffing back her tears and roughly wiping her eyes with her balled fist, she stood slowly, but remained where she was, blinking fearfully at him, reluctant to step out from behind the bed.

Afraid.

"Come on," he repeated, then smiled again as she took one cautious step in his direction. "That's it. Good girl."

Her knees trembled, and she suddenly felt ill. Taking a gulping breath, she let go to the iron rail and ran to the barred cell wall, never once taking her eyes from his. Her hands fisted themselves in the material of her threadbare kimono as she stared at him, swallowing audibly.

He laughed softly at her, smiling.

"Good girl. Come on, just a little bit more and you're out."

He held out his hand to her.

She looked at his feet, then to the dead body lying beside him, and shook her head fervently, taking a few shuffling steps backwards.

The plant man frowned.

"Come on."

She shook her head again, stepping back so quickly that she tripped, falling heavily on the ground and sliding backwards towards the concrete wall her bed had been pushed against, one hand wrapped around the bars of the bed end; the other pressed to her lips as she fearfully observed him.

He stared at her, huddled in the corner, then sighed, stepping out of the doorway and moving back into the main chamber, leaving the cage door open.

"Better?"

She nodded, crawling forward a little to look at him and judge his distance, then, once satisfied that he was far enough away, stood up, dropped her eyes and quickly moved forward, stepping over the doorframe and into the main chamber, before hurriedly stumbling backwards in to the bars in her rush to get away from the dead guard.

He smirked, amused by her fear, watching her eyes jump between his own and the headless body that now lay between them.

"Good girl," he encouraged, stepping over the body towards her, hand extended. "Come on."

She stared at his hand, then at his face. His insincere smile.

In that moment she decided to run.

Dodging around the plant man, splashing in the warm blood pooled across the dungeon floor, she scrabbled up the stairs, her bare feet skittering across the stone.

She was halfway up she tumbled back down.

The plant man was racing behind her, growling. He was faster and stronger than she was – muscle bulging through the sleeves of his cloak – and this was not the first time he had run in ten years.

Unlike her.

He seized Tae by the back of her kimono, and with a grunt, threw her over her shoulder, down the stairs. She didn't cry out as she flew backwards, nor when her body collided with the concrete wall, the sickening crack as echoing loudly through the stone room. Carmine brilliance burst from her throat, and she collapsed forwards, landing face first on the ground, the force of her arrival sending the blood splashing up around her, filling her eyes, her nose, her mouth.

Quivering, she lifted herself up on to all fours, staring at the blood that covered her hands and arms, that dripped from her face and stained her kimono crimson. There was a coppery taste inside her mouth.

Within seconds she had emptied the watery contents of her stomach on to the floor, her body shaking with repressed sobs as she retched. She was dimly aware of the plant man's footsteps as he descended the stairs towards her, and of her own noisy breath, blood and vomit bubbling from her mouth and running down her chin.

She lifted her eyes to gaze unfocusedly at the plant man as he loomed over her, fought to keep her vision in focus.

"**Get up."**

She didn't move, breath still labouring as she fought to catch it.

"**Get up, girl,"** he repeated, reaching a hand out toward her. She fell backwards, scrabbling away from him in her haste, the blood crashing in waves over her legs as she frantically tried to find a footing on the slimy floor.

Her skull was on fire, scalp sticky and wet.

She slowly reached upwards to touch her hair, then gasped, taking her hand from the top of her head and staring at it.

Her fingertips were varnished scarlet.

Shakily, she looked up at the plant man.

_I__'m bleeding…_

"**Get up. Now."**

Mechanically, she shook her head, no.

_I__'m bleeding…_

"**Get up."**

_No._ Her lips moved but no sound came out.

The smirk fell from the plant man's face and he lunged towards her, picking her up by the throat and slamming her against the stone wall again.

Tae immediately began to struggle, clawing at his hands with her blood encrusted nails, and he released his grip, allowing her to stumble away from him, feet stained vermillion splashing as she gasped for breath. Her knees shook, then gave way beneath her, and she fell heavily to the ground, panting. Her head slumped forward, dark hair drifting down her face and trailing in the puddles of blood on the floor, her long-fingered hands splayed, supporting her trembling weight as she sobbed silently.

Zetsu watched the girl uneasily.

She had pulled her legs up to her chest, the movement disturbing the pool she sat in and sending ripples dancing throughout the carmine. Blood trickled down the white nape of her neck from the crown of her head, her arms wrapped around her shoulders.

He looked around the room once more, feeling, not for the first time, that there was another person standing in the dim chamber, then leant forward towards her.

"**What's your name, girl?"**

Her quivering stopped immediately, and she gazed up at him, eyes wide in confusion, head titled to the side. She seemed to shrink before him, and he thought that she looked like a little girl. Frightened, lost. Getting slowly to her feet, she regarded him cautiously as she bit her knuckles, her other hand wrapped around her throat, fingers tenderly running across the skin, the bruises where he had seized her already visible. Her soaked kimono sent blood trickling down her bare legs.

"**What's your name?"**

She continued to stare unblinkingly at him.

"**Well?"** he prompted.

Still, she said nothing.

"**Not a talker, hmm?"**

Tilting his head, Zetsu suddenly disappeared, reappearing in front of her and grabbing her face roughly, making her flinch and jump backwards, a small sound of surprise escaping her throat. He grinned, turning her head to the side.

She was an unusual looking girl.

She might have been beautiful once.

Her hair was long – very long – but she herself was extraordinarily short, and terribly thin – sick-looking, underweight –, her white skin stretched tight over the bones of her face, reminding Zetsu immediately of the Uchiha. The girl's eyes were of the deepest indigo, ringed in dark bruises, and her hands were tattooed with strange designs that wrapped up her wrists and lower arms.

She began to tremble, the reverberations travelling up his arm and making him grin.

"**What are you doing down here, girl?"**

Her lips parted, but no words escaped.

"**How old are you?"** He tried again.

When she raised her head, her face had changed. The innocence had disappeared from her eyes, two hard indigo orbs glaring back at Zetsu, her thin brows furrowed. His own eyes narrowed slightly in surprise at girl's sudden transformation – she looked much older – then he leapt back with a hiss, a pain coursing through his veins he could only liken to receiving an electric shock.

Subconsciously, he raised a hand to touch his face, and the pain flared anew.

_Genjutsu…__?_

He looked at her, saw that she was smiling. His temper snapped and he reached out and struck her with the back of his hand.

She fell heavily to the floor, and when she crawled back to her feet, her eyes were filled with tears.

"Up the stairs," Zetsu snarled.

She stared at him, lip trembling.

"Now!"

She hurried to comply, stumbling in her haste.

Blood ran down her legs as she went.

* * *

**_And stretch me out  
But bother not with ties, I promise to lie  
Perfectly still  
And I swear, I swear not to scream  
At my becoming part of the machine  
_****- Bloodsucker, Pt. II, As Cities Burn**

**Comments & reviews would be greatly appreciated.**

**Special thanks to Chelsey and Jodie for Beta Reading.**

**Thankyoux**


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